“Picking up visitors" was yesterday - Myths in destination marketing must be demystified

by Pietro Beritelli and Christian Laesser

Please note: This contribution is an abstract of a paper in the recent “Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Tourismuswirtschaft”. An English version is attached (click here to download).

Current approaches to destination marketing with the aim of "picking up/ attracting visitors" with the help of communication and sales promotion are under increasing pressure. Much of (destination) "marketing" is habitual, because everyone is doing it that way and it is concluded that it is having an effect. We oppose this: "Attracting visitors" through tourism organisations has never really worked and will work even less in the future.

Dynamic pricing in winter sports resorts: No trivial "exercise"

More and more winter sports resorts are implementing dynamic pricing systems to strengthen their profitability. However, the dominant orientation towards demand-dependent sales maximization is not enough. Prices inhibit a large number of different properties, which should be integrated into pricing. And then there is another important ingredient missing from any “normal” dynamic pricing (in other serice industries): limited capacities.

Destination branding: It is time to surrender in ​dignity to theimpossibility of this task!

Destination branding is one of the key instruments in destination marketing. The article shows that we should end the dance around this golden calf sooner than later.

Only a few are claiming that branding is not one of the key instruments in destination marketing. A destination must be positioned in the market, and guests should get a clear picture of what is going on, and what values, etc., a destination embraces. In short, destinations should have an emotional and thus binding meaning for their guests.

I allow myself to raise my critical voice at this point: Let's stop burning our budgets specifically for destination branding. Why? Because I think we've all gotten a wrong picture for years. Let me bring forward some arguments to explain how I come to this conclusion.